MUCH OF what we understand in literature from regions where magical
realism has a significant foothold
relies upon those writers' masteries of the literary Other.

What is the literary Other?

I'm not sure there is a single definition for the "literary" Other, but the
WordNet Dictionary defines Other as "the quality
of being not alike; being distinct or different from that otherwise
experienced or known. ... Synonyms:
distinctness, separateness ... See Also: difference."

(It's probably worth clarifying that the Other, in the context of this
discussion, primarily refers to "outsider" or "minority" perceptions held by
the mainstream of North American society, particularly relating to race. It
can also refer to those communities who have experienced some level of
forced separation from the power center: namely, women, homosexuals,
political or religious minorities and the poor.)

A very loose and simplistic interpretation might be that anyone
who is unlike ourselves is the Other. After
all, if it takes a lifetime to know one's self ... how is it ever possible to
truly know the Other?

Except that we do. We think of the Other as all those things which we
are not.

The Other is a hot topic for conversation in academia. Mary K.
Miller of Vanderbilt University calls it
"the postmodern fascination with the other." In the US, discussions about
political correctness and multiculturalism have opened doors wide to the
acceptance of the idea that the Other is a valid presence in American
culture, perhaps for the first time at the mainstream level as the changing
face of America reflects interest in and respect for ideas that were
previously foreign to the mainstream. Creative writing students now work
to clarify not only who or what the literary Other is, but how to write (or,
how not to write) characters and ideas representative of the
literary Other. Certain classics are now pointed out for past
misappropriations of the Other: Joseph Conrad has been accused of one
such writer's
"sin"—representing, with authority, the plight of the Other while assuming
his own worldview as the empirical one. Another interesting discussion
can revolve around the portrayal of the Noble Savage in Daniel Dafoe's
Robinson Crusoe, a text that works hard, in some ways, to
make sense of Otherness in a time when colonialism ruled the prevailing
worldview.

The university is perhaps the best place to elicit a discussion about
Otherness, where it is (at least in theory)
assumed that dialog about sensitive subjects like cultural identity can be
robust and thoughtful, illuminated by
a diversity of opinions. And universities, indeed, offer very specific
classes on the subject, such as "ENG 472Y
Representing the Other in Post-Colonial Literature," a course offered at
the University of Toronto Caribbean
Studies program, which is described as "a study of post-colonial
writers who give expression to the voice of
the other: the silenced, the subaltern and the marginalized."

For those who are not already enrolled in such coursework but remain
interested in independent reading on the
subject, many fine textbooks exist. One of my favorites is Postethnic
Narrative Criticism by Frederick Luis
Aldama. Look, especially, in "Coda: Mapping the Postethnic Critical
Method" for an excellent discussion about
the challenges in capturing the Other for the purposes of writing magical
realism.

It's not my design to launch a postgraduate discussion here about
Otherness as part of the foundation for writing authentic
magical realism, but I would still like to present this snapshot of
Dr. Mary Klages's comparison
between modernity and the postmodern (where magical realism resides)
as food for thought (Klages is
Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of
Colorado, Boulder):

"Modernity is
fundamentally about order: about rationality and rationalization, creating
order out of chaos. The assumption is
that creating more rationality is conducive to creating more order, and
that the more ordered a society is, the
better it will function (the more rationally it will function). Because
modernity is about the pursuit of
ever-increasing levels of order, modern societies constantly are on guard
against anything and everything labeled
as disorder, which might disrupt order. Thus modern societies
rely on continually establishing a binary
opposition between order and disorder, so that they can
assert the superiority of order.
But to do this, they have to have things that represent
disorder—modern societies thus continually have
to create/construct disorder. In western culture, this disorder
becomes the other—defined in
relation to other binary oppositions. Thus anything non-white, non-male,
non-heterosexual, non-hygienic,
non-rational, (etc.) becomes part of disorder, and has to be
eliminated from the ordered, rational
modern society."

This presumes a sinister outcome that we can only wish were
exaggerated. But the fact is, this larger worldview
about order and disorder plays a major part in motivating otherwise
good people to acts of political oppression.

Stay with me on this point. It's useful, as a magical realist writer, to
intersect this observation about the Other with another regarding
colonialism. In a program arranged for the World
Archaeological Congress, Pedro
Funari of Brazil and Chris Gosden and Richard Hingley of the United
Kingdom organized a discussion entitled,
"Colonialism And Identity: Origins And Otherness," which aimed to
show how representations of the
Other have such tremendous impact (negative and positive) on cultural
identity:

"Peoples’ views of
their identity are compounded of ideas about origins and ideas about
Otherness: where people think they come
from and how they differ from others contributes in large part to their
feelings of identity. Colonialism has caused
massive changes in thoughts about identity, partly through changing
peoples’ thoughts about their origins and
who constitutes the Other. European cultures are very much colonial
products. In the eighteenth to the earlier
twentieth centuries they often sought for civilized origins in
Greece and Rome in a manner influenced by
their contemporary imperial relationships. On the other hand they also
sought primitive origins comparing
their prehistory to the modern Stone Age peoples of Africa,
New Guinea or the Americas. ...
Effectively, Europeans tried to deny civilised origins to those
who were not deemed civilised in the then
present: the most notorious case being the amount of effort Rhodes and
others spent on looking for a
non-African origin for Great Zimbabwe, but is something which also
happened with the mound builders of North
America and a range of other cases. As well as considering European
views about others, we want also to
explore how other cultural forms have created notions of identity,
otherness and origin through colonial
experiences. Diasporic cultures have special interests in origins and
identity shaped by their colonial experience,
for instance. We also need to consider how far clichéd notions of origins
and identity are current within
archaeology and anthropology and what forms of critique we need to
provide new forms of thought about
identity."

Food for thought for magical realist writers? Absolutely.

Writing the Other from a mainstream North American perspective brings
challenges that are bigger than any one writer's ability to craft a
sentence, tighten a plot or cement an extended metaphor. Especially in
the case of writers navigating the
narrative shoals of magical realism, one has to be aware of the pitfalls of
writing outside one's own reality.

Now this is not to say that writers should never write characters, settings
or situations that may be foreign to their everyday reality. I'm firmly
against the simplistic interpretation of the writer's rule, "Write what you
know." Knowing is not limited to the contents within your cranium. Just
ask a mother, any mother, what she
knows, and she might explain a feeling in her bones—an ancestral,
matriarchal knowledge that defies
intellectualization. Knowledge comes from experience, physical and
sensory memory, cultural identity, emotion,
intuition, education, environment, instinct, relationships, the creative
drive. Those writers who explore what they
"know" through their writing, and who take into account all these
different sources of "knowledge," are more
likely to write accounts (fictive or not) of human experience that are
authentic and rich in texture.

Though I must pause... Authenticity is a red-flag kind of word. What is
authentic, especially in a conversation among people who cannot
even decide upon a definition of magical realism or a singular notion of
what is "real?" For writers attempting the
magical realist narrative, it's about making sure that you are writing
magical realism and/or the Other because the writing requires it.

This edition's Practical Magic column, smack dab in the middle
of our special theme on Caribbean magical realism, necessarily focuses
on the challenges that writers have incorporating Otherness into their
writing. Here are some mistaken assumptions about writing the Other, in
magical realism and elsewhere, that writers need to
be aware of:

"It's my job as a writer to assume the role of interpreter for
those who have no voice."
It's a valiant notion, taking on the job of speaking for those who cannot.
And sometimes, writers can do this very
well (with or without permission to do so). But is this
the reason why you are writing a
magical realist story? Because if it is, you might have to rethink why
you're so motivated to speak for the voiceless.

Writing magical realism is not a way to save the world. Now, wanting for
a better world is fine, but writing as
"social work" contains an insidious measure of arrogance that can
unintentionally feed political movements of
cultural erasure. By co-opting these stories, there is always the risk of
further alienating the Other. Is this how you want to save the world?

What writing magical realism can do, when done well, is bring to light
uncommon realities before an attentive audience. Remember, writing
magical realism is always about writing fiction, first and last. It's
the story, not what you are "saying," that
makes the difference. As long as you can effectively "take yourself out"
of the narrative (through an awareness of
personal biases and a willingness to define and master the perspective of
the Other), you should be fine. Writing magical realism is not
about you, but them.

Be aware, too, that your work could be viewed as co-opting someone
else's culture for your own benefit. This
is a slippery slope—after all, who owns culture? Especially in the US,
where distinct cultures are the exception
and not the norm? I'm not suggesting you not "go there" at all, but you
should be aware that this is a common
accusation. Folks who make up the communities of the Other have a
right to be concerned: these are their stories, even if they might also be ours as well. My suggestion is to walk this
ground carefully and question your motives every step along the way.
Someone will eventually ask for the answers to those questions anyway.
Your job? Do some interior homework. Your writing will be better for
it.

"Since it's fiction, I have license to borrow and create as
necessary to get across my message."
Fine. Borrow, create, steal if you must. Just be aware...by using fabulist
devices, and imparting what you regard as the Truth of the Other, you
run the risk of glossing over what is truly painful and oppressive for
others. I don't think any writer really wants to trivialize
things like poverty, physical oppression or political atrophy for the sake
of telling a good story.

At any rate, does one need the cloak of magical realism to convey such a
message? And why is the message important? Is it their
message, or
your message?

Be prepared to take it on the chin later,
should you decide to, say, tell the tumultuous
story of Haiti's history through the eyes of a slave girl using obeah and
local patois to render it magical and
palpable. If you aren't Haitian, if you don't believe in obeah, if you don't
speak the language, your story, however
colorful, heartfelt, researched, witty and articulate, will likely come off as
a farce told by an outsider.

If you want to convey a
message, might not it be better, in such a case, to simply tell it straight
up? Or even better, to let the ancestor of a
Haitian slave girl tell it for herself? Sometimes, "softening" the realities of
the Other through the use of fabulism
can make the Other seem less "real." Is that fair?

"I see all around me the oppression of women, of people of
color, of gays. These people constitute my
world. What's wrong with writing magical realism to uncover these
corruptions?"
Nothing. Magical realism as a narrative form can be effectively used to
stand in for the alternative point of view
of many. But an underlying political agenda should not be the outspoken
device at work in a magical realist
story. Magical realism, though a kind of political narrative, is not a
manifesto. It posits not what you think has
happened, but what could happen. That is to say, if you're
writing the story of Cuban refugees trying to fit into
Miami society, and you want to introduce magical realist elements as a
way of revealing a protracted life of exile, you work might be viewed as
a treatise, rather than the saga or fable it should be. One tip: if
you write realistic characters who can animate subversive possibilities in
a way that is both organic to the story and
marvelous in aesthetic, you'll have a better chance of pulling this off.

"I want to write magical realism as a way to show to readers
that we are all human beings, that the
uncanny, the inexplicable touches all of us."
Well, let's not justify a narrative strategy by stating the obvious. It might
be worth asking yourself: Do I need
to use magical realist elements to show that we are all human beings?
Because if you do, then you might wish to
mine your psyche for biases, to discover what your real motives are.

Think about it for a moment: What do you actually mean when you
suggest that we are all the same? Acknowledging that we are all different
is not being bigoted. Nor is it wrong to observe that the world is
not
borderless. We are not all the same. Our differences, whether
cultural or physical or political, are what make us
all human beings. These differences give us our individual, and collective,
identities.

As a writer of magical realism, it's important to remember that you are
not creating cultural
artifacts when you write your stories. You are not an archeologist or an
ethnographer. You are an artist—you deal in aesthetics, words and
media. Your goal is to write fiction that connects the objective reality of
your
characters with extraordinary possibility.

A missive on the global village will not be effective if your goal is
homogeneity, however. How might your audience respond if your
message erases all that makes us distinct and unique? People outside the
mainstream are already aware of their Otherness as it is viewed from that
point of
view. As well, they know their Otherness is equally something to
treasure, as rich and lovely as any other distinct
identity.

"Magical realism, when written well, holds tremendous influence
over world literature. Just look at
Salman Rushdie. His writing has really made a difference."
Next time Mr. Rushdie comes into town, I hope to ask him two
questions: "Did you mean to write magical
realism?" and "Was your first goal, as a writer, to change the political
landscape of the world?" I'm banking that he'd say "no" to both
questions.

Most magical realist writers don't write it consciously, nor do they have
any more of an inkling than any other writer, obscure or otherwise, how
the world will respond to what they create and
write. Most of the time, they are just writing the Truth as they understand
it. It's an honest motive, and perhaps the only one that does the narrative
of the Other any real justice.

Writing magical realism which incorporates the Other is not about
picking sides or doing social work, it's about
acknowledging and respecting differences; understanding the context of
past, present and future; and using
aesthetics, not politics, as a vehicle for storytelling. Translator Gregory
Rabassa once said, "The greatest defense
and protection against solitude, loneliness, and barren isolation from our
fellows: the re-creative force of art."

Re-creation builds bridges, inspires humility, demands honesty,
welcomes learning, requires compassion and reaches beyond bias. As
writers of magical realism, let us start with these goals as a means for
honoring the realm of the Other.

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